Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Today was the BIG day!! Our girls Bridged over to Brownies! We celebrated in a special way by "baking" each of our Daisies into a Brownie. It was so much fun!

We had a special "oven" made just for today. Each Daisy had a turn to enter the back of the oven.

Inside the oven, was a new Brownie vest (purchased as a surprise with proceeds from selling cookies), which the Daisy would put on (and leave her Daisy vest behind). When she was ready, she rang a little bell (also inside the oven) to indicate she was done (Baked!).

Sunday, June 1, 2014

Our girls enjoyed a fun day at our local swim park. The girls had voted for a pool party as their reward for participating in cookie sales this year. A part of the earnings from the cookies paid for admittance and snacks at the park.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

A part of the Girl Scouts requirements for Daisies to bridge to Brownies, we needed to do an activity with an older troop. A couple of girls from a Junior sister-troop came to visit us. They talked with our girls about the things Girl Scouts can do as a Brownie. They also helped our troop make their sit-upons.

Our visiting Junior scouts helping our troop.

Our finished Sit-Upons!

How to Make a Sit-Upon

A "Sit-Upon" is a homemade, usually waterproof pillow/pad used to protect your backside when you "sit upon" it on the ground. Here is how our troop made their sit-upons. Steps 1 - 5 were done ahead of our meeting so that our girls could spend their time stitching their pillows closed.

1. Start with a water-proof material. We used oilcloth fabric from Jo-Ann store for our sit-upon.

2. Our fabric was 47" wide, so it was cut in half length-wise to make the each piece about 24" on one side. It was then cut again at 18".

3. So each of our sit-upons was made with a piece of oilcloth 24" x 18".

4. Fold the piece of oilcloth in half along the 24" side to make a pillow finished size 12" x 18". You will then have three open sides of the pillow to stitch close.

5. Use a hole punch (I have a small-size hole punch) and punch a series of holes around the open edges of the sit-upon. I held the front & back open edges together with the hole punch so the holes all lined up.

-- The above steps where done ahead-of-time for the girls to save time during our meeting. --

6. Use a piece of plastic Rexlace or gimp to stitch the pillow closed. Tie a knot at the first hole, and loop the lace through the holes, going around the two sides of the pillow. Do not stitch the third side of the pillow closed yet.

7. Take a plastic grocery bag and fill it with your stuffing material. Tie it closed.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Each girl received a copy of the Petal Power and Follow the Honeybee's Trail Daisy activity pages from the Barbie I Can Be booklet. We reviewed these activities, and also talked about all of the different jobs we learned about from our field trip to the Costco warehouse.

The girls received a copy of the last page of the booklet printed on card-stock. This page contains the Barbie and Teresa dolls to be cut out to make paper dolls.

After carefully cutting out these dolls and their stands, the girls received a copy of papers containing career outfits. There was one page of career outfits in the Barbie booklet, and a separate pdf file of more outfits. The separate file of outfits are in black and white to allow the girls to color their own career outfits. We talked about what these different career outfits were all about. The girls each cut out their favorite profession outfit for their doll.

The girls were able to take these pages home to continue coloring and cutting at home if desired. They also went home with a copy of the Go Online page from the Barbie booklet to learn more about inspiring women at home.

The girls went home with their own Barbie patch today. Only one patch may be requested at a time from the Girl Scouts, so we had each mom order a patch for their daughter ahead of time so that we would have them in time for today's meeting. (If you want to download a free digital version to iron on to an uniform, click here.)

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Winter has given us many snow storms this year. Just when we thought we were clear for Spring, we've got another round of snow to cause school cancellations. We were to do our Barbie I Can Be... patch at today's meeting, and we will just wait until our next meeting on the 18th to do them. See you then!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

We had an awesome time today on our field trip to our local Costco. The store's manager, Mr. Keith, gave the girls the grand tour of all of the departments and jobs that make up this membership warehouse. Each child received a Costco name badge with their name on it. Mr. Keith told them this would be their orientation to the warehouse, as if they were a real employee.

We started at the Customer Service Desk, and headed to the Tire Center, then thru the main entrance to the Photo Center then the Optical Center. We stopped in at each department to learn a little about how it is run. Mr. Keith explained how Costco stores, tracks and displays their merchandise, and how employees maintain the appearance of the warehouse.

We continued through warehouse to the back of the store where the Bakery is located. Mr. Keith explained how much the bakery department produces every day. We even got to sample free cookies while here.

On to the Meat department to meet the butchers and then to the Produce department. All of the employees would greet our troop as we visited their department.

We explored the back dock where the trucks deliver the goods from the depot to the warehouse. We watched an employee demonstrate the forklift and how it is used to move and store the merchandise.

We continued the tour through the food sections of the store and went to visit the Pharmacy and Hearing departments. From there we went through the Employee Lounge and management offices. Mr. Keith then gave each of the kids a free backpack they could use in school.

We finished our tour at the Food Court, and were treated to complimentary pizza, lemonade and churros for our group.

Such an awesome field trip! We will use some of what we learned today about different jobs for the Barbie I Can Be badge.